justnick's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Incidentally, also the name of my next album! Even as a child, I always hated essays. We're supposed to be teaching youth how to define the world, not how to be defined by it. You know what I mean? Learning should go from the inside out, not the outside in. The skills we're giving them should be tools to figure out how to solve new problems and think creatively, not to recite and memorize. If we just want an entire generation of people who will do exactly what we did, why do we bother teaching them at all? I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand the more classical educational model when it comes to the sciences. Obviously I don't want my doctor "feeling his way through it" next time I have to be operated on, and no one wants the legal system to be dictated entirely on what kind of day the judge is having. But the purpose of education is essentially to teach a kid to use his left brain and right brain together for one purpose, no? Left and right, logical and lateral, creativity and intelligence, speed and power, and any of a million other hot rod puns similes, and/or metaphors. And when you sit a hundred kids who all have different brains, interests, abilities, and impulses in a room together and tell them to write what essentially amounts to a university-level MadLib, you are imposing the left brain's learning patters on the right brain. You're supposed to express your opinion about something, but hide it behind the illusion of unbiasedness. Smoke and mirrors, says I! Treachery and subterfuge! You can't say 'me' or 'I' or express your own opinion--but you can quote someone else's (just so long as it was peer-reviewed). Oh, and if you didn't use MLA, CP, or AP, I'm not even marking it, even if I can read it easily. It's like some weird, sadistic, bureaucratic brainwashing technique they use to get us used to all the opiates they're going to be jamming down our gullets later in life to keep us pacified and in order. I swear, bureaucrats taxes and essays are just western society's Zoloft: "stop feeling the highs, kids, because we're terrified of your lows." We call them ADD and television and violent video games, because otherwise maybe it's our fault, and we're all too fucking narcissistic to take any goddamn responsibility. And in the end, it just comes down to the fear of death. One generation clings to power in every way they can to stave off dealing with their own guilt and mortality and wasted corporate lives, and all it does is fill the next generation with the same fears, questions, and insecurities. 'Cause shit don't change, y'all. Excelsior. 1:34 p.m. - 2010-09-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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